.Accuses APC of extorting N1.2b from Nigerians
By Valentine Amanze
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential
Campaign Organization (PPCO) has said that the expression of vote of no confidence, direct booing, jeering and rejection of President Muhammadu Buhari by members of the two chambers of the National Assembly at the 2019 budget
presentation on Wednesday signaled the end of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nigeria.
Kola Ologbondiyan, the director, Media & Publicity, PDP Presidential Campaign Organization, disclosed this on Thursday.
He also alleged that the continued rejection of President Buhari and his APC by Nigerians further exposed the corruption and fleecing of Nigerians by the Presidency to fund its “ill-fated 2019 re-election bid.”
It would be recalled that on Wednesday, December 19, 2018, Nigerians across the country and the international
community witnessed the expression of vote of no confidence, direct booing, jeering and rejection of President Muhammadu Buhari by members of the two chambers of the National Assembly at the 2019 budget
presentation.
According to the group,“Today’s open rejection of President Buhari by the lawmakers, representing all the federal constituencies and senatorial zones across
our country, shows that Mr. President no longer enjoys the support of
Nigerians across the country; that he no longer has any political
foothold and only awaits a crushing defeat in the 2019 general election.
“What else do Nigerians want from a President, who has openly confessed his lack of capacity to find solutions to the myriads of problems his
administration brought and on that note promised Nigerians more
sufferings and hardship in the coming year?
“This is more so as his scripted presentation at the budget session was
full of false performance indices, claims of non-existent projects,
half-truths, bogus fiscal projections, beguilements and new list of fake
promises, which Nigerians have since seen through.”
The group also accused the president of dwelling on fictitious figures, unrealistic
projections and could not give a credible account of the performance of
the 2018 budget, which like other annual budgets, since he came into office has remained unimplemented, due to incompetence and humongous corruption in his Presidency.
It pointed out that in the budget it was ridiculous that Mr. President could defend N60 million liters of fuel as daily consumption by vehicles in Nigeria, whereas before he was elected into office, he publicly declared that the
use of 30 million liters of fuel per day was a fraud.
It queried: “Is not also ludicrous that between 2015 and now, the figure of daily consumption of
fuel has doubled in the same economy that has witnessed a recession twice under his watch?
“Mr. President could not give cogent explanation on the handling of
Defence budgets under his watch particularly in the face of allegations of diversion of military funds to fund his re-election bid as well as the neglect of our troops, leading to the killing of hundreds of our
soldiers fighting insurgency in the North East.”
Besides, the PDP group decried how President Buhari referred to citizens during the budget presentation as “the Nigerian people”, stance, which it said showed his distance and lack of connection with compatriots.
It however warned the President and the APC that the game was up and that Nigerians were no longer ready to accept an incompetent administration that thrived only in propaganda, falsehood and deceit.
“Our citizens are very eager to usher in a new era of credible, transparent and competent government; the very reason they are rallying behind the PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar,” it stated.
Official Extortion And Fleecing of Nigerians
Meanwhile, the PDP has alerted that President Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) were seeking to
fleece unsuspecting and already impoverished Nigerians through the
extortion of N1.2 billion from poor beneficiaries of Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN)’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, to fund Mr. President’s 2019 re-election bid.
The PDP however condemned the bid by the ruling party, while describing it as “corruption and intimidation of
our citizens and attempt by President Buhari to receive financial
kickback from beneficiaries of government intervention in violation of
our financial regulations.”
The PDP also alleged that the Buhari Presidency had been secretly diverting huge part of various social intervention funds to the
Buhari campaign and handing paltry sums to Nigerians, as well as how
agents of the Presidency carrying out their vote buying project,
particularly the Trader-moni scheme, had been illegally collecting 10
percent kickback from beneficiaries.
The PDP challenged President Buhari to speak out and not continue to
keep mum on alleged looting of over N11 trillion from the public
coffers, including the diverted N9 trillion, as detailed in the leaked NNPC memo, to finance his campaign.
It also challenged Mr. President to speak out on the alleged fleecing of Nigerians to the tune of N2.6 trillion through hidden illegal N48 tax per liter of petrol which Nigerians have continued to bear since the fuel price increased from PDP subsidized cost of N87 to presumably
unsubsidized cost of N145.